Bubbles
by WeeLittleBeastie
Summary: Please forgive the working title. The doctor is injured. Donna thinks she knows how to make him feel better. No romance, just friendship.


**A/N: I don't own Doctor Who, and trust me if I did you'd know about it.**

**This is incomplete, but I intend for it to be a two-shot and am working on the second part with hopes to have it done in some acceptable time frame. I'm also working on a multi-chapter piece detailing events briefly mentioned in this story, and a Merlin multi-chapter story that I haven't really fleshed out yet.**

**Please be kind if you choose to review; I am definitely not a gifted writer, but I do try very hard. No beta, so all mistakes are my own.**

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At some point in her adult life she'd learned that it was called 'sensory deprivation', and that it had all kinds of practical applications from meditation to torture. All Donna knew was that she could concentrate better with her eyes closed, the lights dimmed, and bath water lapping around her ears. She did her best thinking in the bath, she'd once told her mum at the age of ten, when questioned about her pruny fingers and water-spotted journal.

When she'd first begun traveling with the Doctor, Donna had despaired over the lack of a good tub, until one morning she'd awakened to find an oversized claw-footed one smack in the center of her bathroom. Tricks of a psychic police box, she'd thought at the time, as she opened the tap.

Once she'd told the Doctor that baths were severely underrated. They were in the TARDIS' kitchen, the Doctor making tea and biscuits while Donna sat with her arms folded on the table, wrapped in a bathrobe and fuzzy socks after an unfortunate dip in an alien lake. A fall in a lake wasn't pleasant at all, she'd mused aloud, but a fall into a nice hot bath would be a welcome accident, so long as her head landed on something soft.

For a while she forgot about baths altogether, as they barely escaped one disaster only to leap into the next. And then came Calladon, the seemingly peaceful little tropical planet turned hostile because the people held some kind of record for grudge-holding. They hadn't escaped that one, and Donna had been able to do nothing but look on in horror as her best friend was tortured and humiliated simply because he was the only timelord left to punish.

Donna sighed and glanced up from her journal at the console, where the Doctor was currently busying himself with a squiggly-shaped lever. The redhead felt a frown pulling at the corners of her lips as she watched him move stiffly around the ship. His face remained blank save the occasional wince, but behind his thick-rimmed glasses lines of pain had taken up permanent residence round his eyes. He'd been slow to heal, and strangely quiet of late. She was worried about him.

"Are you all right?"

She'd never seen the timelord jump. Spinning around on his red trainers, he immediately smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry?"

Donna set her journal down and folded her hands in her lap. "I asked if you're all right? You seem... stiff."

He sniffed, glancing suspiciously at her over the rim of his glasses. "I'm fine. Right as rain, fit as a fiddle. No need to worry about me."

Something in her face must have given away her doubt because next thing she knew he was lifting her chin with his fingers. "Hey, I promise, Donna. I'm fine." After a moment she nodded, and he headed for the console again. As he stepped up, the toe of one shoe caught the step, dumping him unceremoniously into the side of the control panel. Donna didn't miss the half-stifled cry of pain from her friend and leapt to her feet despite his meager wave of protest.

She seized him by the elbow and steered him toward the step, sitting him down on it. The Doctor immediately curled into his right side, wrapping his long arms around his middle. When he attempted to wave her off with repeated exclamations of "I'm fine, just got the wind knocked out of me", she seized his face, forcing him to look her in the eye.

"You are not fine," she said forcefully. "You're in pain, and I'm going to fix it, and you're going to sit still while I do or so help me..." The unfinished threat hung in the air until the Doctor finally relented, loosening his grip on his middle. Donna pushed his shirt up and stifled a gasp. Livid bruising covered his torso in layers, an ugly rainbow marring his pale skin. Most of them were beginning to fade to a sickly yellow-green, but a fresh one was blooming where he'd hit the console. He hissed when she gently touched it. "Why haven't these healed?" she asked quietly.

"The drug they were injecting me with on Calladon," he said by way of reply, leaning back against the rail. "I haven't been able to completely clear it from my system and it's inhibiting my healing abilities. I had to direct what was available to the internal bleeding."

"You're bleeding internally, and you didn't think maybe that was worth a mention?"

Donna's voice teetered on the edge of rising an octave, and the Doctor seemed to sense the danger. "It's not life-threatening, not anymore. I didn't want to worry you." He threw his hands up as she rounded on him, her face red with indignation. "I know, I know, it was stupid, you were worried anyway. I'm so sorry, Donna. Really I am."

He winced again, eyes squeezed shut, and Donna sighed. She couldn't stay angry at him when he was vulnerable and hurting. "All right, Spaceman, I forgive you." She glanced at her journal and a thought suddenly struck her. "And I think I know what might make you feel better."

The bathroom seemed ages away, and Donna winced every time the Doctor hissed in pain as he limped along beside her. Once inside, she sat him down on the closed lid of the toilet and then turned to the large claw-footed tub, opening the tap and holding her wrist under the stream until it was hot before dropping the plug into the drain.

"This is a fabulous tub," the Doctor exclaimed from behind her, peering around her shoulder at the big porcelain fixture. "I don't remember this being here."

"It wasn't always. I used to think a lot that I'd never take a proper bath again, traveling with you, and then one morning here it was."

"Ah," he said sagely, nodding to himself. "The TARDIS is a bit psychic. Clever girl." He grinned, the expression turning to a grimace as he shifted on the seat and jostled his newest technicolor addition. "Ow."

Donna added a capful of bubble bath to the water and breathed in deeply as a light floral scent filled the washroom. She'd picked it up in some off-world market she'd visited with the Doctor.

"Tannis blossoms," the Doctor said, smiling lightly. "You know they have medicinal properties, those flowers. And they smell fantastic."

Donna smiled and turned the faucet off, double-checking that the water was the right temperature. "Right," she said, turning toward him. "I'll let you keep a little dignity." She turned her back as he shrugged out of his suit, her heart breaking a little for him every time he stifled a sound of pain, but in fairly short order he'd carefully lowered himself into the tub. Donna pulled the step stool from the corner and sat with her forearms resting on the tub's edge.

Little by little she saw the tension leak out of the Doctor's face, his pinched and pained expression replaced with something closer to his normal appearance. She smiled when a tiny sigh of contentment escaped his lips and silently congratulated herself on her moment of brilliance as she made to get up and leave him in peace.

"Donna?" The Doctor let one somewhat soapy hand fall onto her wrist. "You don't have to leave." It was more a plea than a statement and she consented immediately, settling back onto the stool. Silence reigned for another moment before he tilted his head to one side, peering at her out of one half-open eye. "I didn't know you kept a journal."

"Thought you knew everything," she teased back, winking at him before looking to the little green-felted book in her hands. "Always have done, I suppose, since I was a little girl. My mum thought I was mad; nothing in them ever made much sense to her."

"I think it's brilliant."

Donna looked up and smiled gently. The Doctor, half-submerged in a heaping mound of bubble bath, grinned back and then leaned his head back against the edge of the tub, letting his eyes slide closed.

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**There ****you ****have ****it. ****A ****quick ****thanks ****to ****my ****good ****friend, ****who ****inspired ****this ****piece ****after ****I ****had ****a ****particularly ****painful ****pulled ****muscle ****situation ****and ****he ****recommended ****a ****nice ****hot ****bath. ****Does ****wonders ****for ****such ****a ****simple ****thing. ****Thanks ****for ****reading!**


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